England is using artificial intelligence to deal with the increase in thefts

According to the report of the international group Tasnim news agency quoting The number of shoplifting cases in the UK is increasing rapidly and punishments for the perpetrators are rarely pursued, according to The Day Site. Now artificial intelligence and facial recognition are considered to solve this problem. falls down. As a 50-year-old man stands at the exit cursing, security personnel remove the bottles from his shopping bag. A seller says: He wanted to leave with all these goods without paying. Such incidents happen every day in England. In the thief’s shopping cart there are two packets of sugar, a bottle of olive oil, cabbage – etc.

The problem is that in such cases there is no need to even inform the police. Because they don’t come. Police forces do not have enough staff to deal with this issue. With around 850 thefts per day, dealing with this can translate into more attacks on staff and customers. The police are not interested in dealing with shoplifting under £200 (equivalent to €230) because there are no convictions in these cases. ONS), reports of shoplifting have risen by 25% this year to more than 365,000 – and that’s just the figures reported in England and Wales. According to the Retail Association, the number of unreported cases is eight million each year. But even when robberies are reported, police declare 54.5 percent of cases closed because they cannot identify the perpetrators, according to the Interior Ministry. Charges are filed in just 14.2% of cases.

The British Retail Association reports that a chain store has waited in vain for the police in 73% of serious thefts. . The head of furniture store John Lewis complains: “This situation is like an invitation to theft.” According to him, inflation and lack of money in many households have exacerbated this problem. More than 90 companies from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) in In September, they wrote a letter to the British Home Office and called for tougher laws so that thieves face serious consequences again.

According to the Retail Research Center report, the items Demands include: meat, razors, whiskey, cosmetics, cheese, deodorant, batteries, clothes, coffee and baby clothes and milk powder.

A growing problem , there are gangs where mostly women steal for a living. According to the manager of a department store in England, this is like modern day slavery. Women are exploited and forced to steal a handbag from Balenciaga every day – according to her “Women are paid so poorly that sometimes they have to steal in the evenings to feed their children.

This report continues: Since the corona epidemic, young people have also There have also been those who have spontaneously arranged to meet in groups on TikTok and attack stores. So the security personnel have no chance. The young men, wearing their hats, stuff as many sneakers and cosmetics into their pockets as they can. They leave before the police come. Then the young people broadcast their heroic act on TikTok.

Some retailers don’t know what to do anymore. In the summer, an Asian business owner in London’s Peckham area was angered by customer theft. He fought with him, beat him. The police came too late. Those days were followed by campaigns by African-British residents against the shopkeeper, who was forced to close his shop for a long time.

According to the BRC report, the wave Crime costs UK retailers £953 million a year, which is more than €1 billion. In addition, last year the industry invested £715 million in anti-theft measures: notably in new cash registers that automatically film customers, as well as facial recognition and artificial intelligence systems. It will.

This is the path that Chris Philp, the UK’s Deputy Secretary of State for Security, wants to take. In October, he announced an initiative to encourage more retailers to join Project Pegasus. It is a Home Office collaboration with department stores such as John Lewis, Co op, M&S, Boots and Primark. These companies install cameras that film customers as they pay. The data is sent to the police, who compare the images with those of criminals. This means that perpetrators are identified more quickly and the rate of identification of criminals increases. It goes further and uses artificial intelligence and facial recognition to help stores prevent crime. At the entrance of stores that have joined Facewatch, a large poster warns customers that their face will be filmed when they enter the store and compared to the Facewatch database using facial recognition. This collection consists of photos of criminals and thieves who have reported their business to the company. If the system detects a shoplifter, store staff will receive an alert and can have a friendly conversation with that person. This is to prevent thieves from committing crimes. If the system does not recognize the customer, the biometric data is automatically deleted. The Facewatch system operates legally within the framework of UK data protection regulations. Nightclubs are also installing Facewatch.

While human rights organizations are warning of the future of these conditions and the state of extreme surveillance, the UK is not taking this seriously. he does not give. In London, cameras are installed in every train station, every bus, every shop and every shop.

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